Dean Nell Jessup Newton has announced that the Peter Lardy Memorial Fellowship for the 2014-2015 academic year has been awarded to 2L Christopher Stewart. Stewart’s name will now be added to the Lardy Fellowship plaque’s list of recipients, which includes 2013-2014 Fellow Armando Cordoves and extends back to the first recipient, John F. Ready, in 1976.

Sara McLanahan, the William S. Tod Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University, delivered the keynote address for this year’s annual conference of the Leverhulme Trust on March 27 in Notre Dame Law School’s Patrick F. McCartan Courtroom.

The 2014 Notre Dame Black Law Students Association alumni weekend will open Friday, March 21, with a reception at the South Bend home of the Hon. Roland Chamblee Jr. and conclude on Sunday with a prayer service in memory of the Hon. Judge Willie Lipscomb, J.D. ’75.

Associate Justice Clarence Thomas of the United States Supreme Court visited Notre Dame Law School the week of February 3, 2014, serving as the James J. Clynes Visiting Chair in Judicial Ethics. Over the course of the week, Justice Thomas co-taught with Professor Richard W. Garnett an intensive seminar on “Religious Freedom and the Establishment Clause.”

Members of the NDLS community and the U.S. Attorney’s Office joined family and friends to support 3L Jason O’Brien at his U.S. Navy ensign commissioning ceremony in the Patrick F. McCartan Courtroom last November.

Designed to prepare students for practice in a wide variety of intellectual property-related fields, the program includes basic and advanced courses in patent, copyright, trademark and unfair competition as well as courses in related fields such as design, cyberlaw, and antitrust.

William O. McLean, associate dean emeritus of the University of the Notre Dame Law School, died Nov. 19 (Tuesday). He was 91.

A native of Greenville, Ill., McLean was a 1957 graduate in school administration from the University of New Mexico and held master degrees in international affairs and education from George Washington University and Notre Dame, respectively. He also was a graduate of the U.S. Naval War College.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. has invited NDLS alum G. Ryan Snyder (JD ’12) to join his chambers as a judicial clerk for the October 2014 Supreme Court term. Ryan is the third NDLS grad to be named a Supreme Court judicial clerk in the past decade.

D.C. Circuit Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh gave the keynote address for the 2013 Notre Dame Law Review Symposium November 1 in the Patrick F. McCartan Courtroom. The presentation was sponsored by the Notre Dame Law Review, the Notre Dame Program on Constitutional Structure, and the Clynes Chair in Judicial Ethics.

The London Law Centre and the NDLS Program on Constitutional Structure recently brought leading scholars from the United States and United Kingdom together for a conference addressing “International Perspectives on Public Law.”

Coached by 3L Paul Kerridge, an Indiana Invaders girls’ travel soccer team has qualified for nationals and will compete against some of the best soccer teams in the country in three days of group play Dec. 5-7, with semifinals and finals set for Dec. 8-9.

Randall T. Shepard delivered a Clynes Chair Lecture on “The Future of Legal Education” to NDLS students and faculty September 25. Shepard is a former Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice and the Chair of the ABA Task Force on the Future of Legal Education. This fall he was named Notre Dame Law School’s Judge James J. Clynes, Jr., Visiting Chair in the Ethics of Litigation Within the Judicial Process.

The Notre Dame Law Association has named Charles A. Weiss, the 2013 recipient of The Rev. Michael D. McCafferty, C.S.C., Award. The McCafferty award is presented by the association to a Notre Dame lawyer who has rendered distinguished service to the University.

Notre Dame Law School’s American Association of Justice (AAJ) 2013 National Champion Moot Court Trial Team was honored by the Melvin M. Belli Society at a reception and dinner in San Francisco this summer.

NDLS hosted a live Tax Court session in the Patrick F. McCartan Courtroom on Wednesday, September 11.

The case Union Township, St. Joseph County v. State of Indiana, Department of Local Government Finance, involves a dispute between Union Township in St. Joseph County, Indiana, and the State of Indiana over Union Township’s property tax levy.